7 ways to release your floral fever this spring

Pick up your feet and get ready to tiptoe through the tulips. Spring is a beautiful time of year in Tasmania, with amazing aromas and captivating colours. Combined with delicious food and drink, it’s the perfect getaway.

Share ↝

It’s tulip season

The Dutch may have paved the way, but these days we export bulbs to the Netherlands! With rich, fertile volcanic soil in the Table Cape crater, the northwest coast offers a world-renowned tulip season. The 90-acre Table Cape Tulip Farm displays a riotous rainbow of over 80 varieties of tulips, Dutch irises and lilies in early October. Sitting atop the sea bluff and gently embracing Wynyard, the farm and its surrounds are open for three-weeks of unsurpassed colour and beauty. The open season culminates in the Bloomin’ Tulips Festival, a day of fireworks, flowers and fun.

When: 13 October

Where: Wynyard

Luke Tscharke

Table Cape Tulip Farm, Wynyard

A blooming great time

Enjoy Tassie’s amazing and unique garden attractions with an incredible food and wine experience. It’s a match made in heaven. The Blooming Tasmania guide has a plethora of visitor locations: it’s an easy overview of tours, walks, events, open gardens, plants and even accommodation with a green twist.

Jessie Watson

Entally House, Hadspen

Estate your business

Tasmania’s climate lends itself to the formal and stately garden structure that harkens back to English gentry. Two magnificent examples of this style can be found in the north of Tassie: Woolmer’s Estate and National Rose Garden, and Clarendon Estate Gardens. Clarendon is a 7-hectare homestead just south of Evandale that was once the centre of a large pastoral enterprise. These days the buildings, extensive gardens and parklands are opened for visitors to explore. Woolmer’s Estate in Longford is the site of the National Rose Garden, a symmetrical 19th century, 117-metre home to 5,000 individual plants from 30 rose families. It is a living history of the rose and any aficionado of this beauteous bloom will be blown away. Visit in November for the Festival of Roses, when the thousands of roses are on display along with over 80 stalls with wine, food, jewellery, art and crafts.

Jessie Watson

Woolmers Estate, Longford

Lavender’s blue

Head south during spring, and see the lavender plants begin to come back to life after a dormant winter. The buds are forming, ready for the splendorous sea of blues and purples in summer. Don’t limit yourself to breathing in the fine and delicate fragrance of this beautiful plant: we invite you to daub yourself in it and even taste it. The lavender-inspired cuisine at Port Arthur Lavender includes ice cream, milkshakes, chocolate and fudge. And Bridestowe’s lavender products include tea and honey, as well as soaps, lotions, oils and creams.

Andrew McIntosh, Ocean Photography

Bridestowe Lavender Farm

Gorge yourself on natural beauty

Launceston’s Cataract Gorge sits astride the South Esk River, just minutes from the city centre. On one side is a pool and open grass area surrounded by natural bushland, but wander across the King’s Bridge (or take a ride in the chairlift) and enter the Cliff Grounds. This shady, secret garden is a Victorian-inspired space of ferns, exotic plants, artworks and bold peacocks. Replete with restaurant, kiosk and pub, where better to grab a bite to eat? If you want to find your own special space to relax, why not bring a picnic?

Dan Fellow

Cataract Gorge, Launceston

Boundless botanicals

There is plenty to do at Hobart’s Royal Botanical Gardens this Spring. The tulips blooming mid-September are a natural stunner and provide the backdrop of colour, but the 200th birthday party continues…with plenty of bicentennial events planned. To mark the Bicentenary a new publication in partnership with the three authors is being launched. Tomato. Sow. Grow. Eat.will be a must-have for tomato lovers. Pick up a bottle of the limited edition RTBG Bicentennial Gin infused with botanicals from the Gardens before you leave.

Tourism Tasmania & Andrew Ross

Colourful gardens are constantly changing

Native wear

Experience the beauty of our stunning native flowers. Visiting the Bay of Fires on the east coast in spring will delight you, with the area ablaze with native orchids and the bright yellow flowers of native Banksia. And in the south, the summit of Hobart’s landmark mountain, kunanyi/Mt Wellington, plays host to the rich, red and ribald waratah flowers in November and December.